Season 5

Galley Slave As part of Missy Bear’s website upgrade, I’ve had to skim through and check the formatting of all the blogs. In doing this, I couldn’t help notice how certain words or subjects or themes recur frequently: “ Venice ”; “ pirates ”, “ Ottoman ”; “ knight ”; “ independence”; or “Arab ”, for example. One word that pops up everywhere is “ slave ”, and as we haven’t covered that topic yet, I decided to collate what we have learned on Missy Bear's voyages to date. By u

Oct Day, October 28, Lakki We have neighbours of several nationalities on Pontoon C: Italian; Swiss, French, and German amongst others. I said “ Buongiorno ” to one lady I had not met before, and she chastised me for using too hard an accent. “ I am not a German ”, she said. “ You must say it softly, ‘moo an sherno’. Not ‘bonn dgerno!’” I repeated what I had heard.  “Bravo”, she nodded approvingly .     I relayed this encounter to our regular Italian neighbour, Sergio. He’s f

Soggy Marmaris Rain in Pedi, Symi - good for cleaning the sprayhood Perspex I suppose I don’t recall such a wet sailing season as 2025. Rain is a rare commodity on our trips, and yet the sheer deluge forecast in Marmaris in May forced us to seek shelter in a marina. We got soaked-through in our ‘wet weather’ jackets and trousers. They are lightweight and not designed for a biblical drenching. They, and we, took two days to dry out. We even put the heating on in the evening, a

Missy Bear sails to Astypalaea Butterfly Island As well as the Knights Hospitaller, the Latins and Franks more generally liked to build a nice castle. The crews of Missy Bear and Money Penny have wandered around the earthquake-smitten ruins of our latest Latin edifice, on the remote Aegean island of Astypalaea. The island is shaped like a butterfly, its two mountainous wings linked by a narrow, rocky isthmus. It is quite barren and sparsely developed, with the main town or Ch

Icarian Sea Once upon a time, Alix and I were pretty poor at spotting and identifying birds. And then lockdowns happened, when we were permitted just one walk every twenty-four hours (crazy, wasn’t it) We were very lucky, because our daily release involved wandering around the neighbouring parkland and farmland of Cirencester. We took our time, as we wanted our precious per diem  freedom to last. Our walks became longer in distance, and we stopped more often to take notice of

Crews of Money Penny and Missy Bear on Tilos, ready for lunch I love descending south from Leros, but coming back is often a climb. And a slog. The prevailing summer winds in the Dodecanese are north-westerlies. Sometimes you can get a southerly and hitch a ride back up, but that is not often. Leaving Leros, we had good, prevailing winds to take us down to Vlichadia, a bay at the south of mountainous Kalymnos, just west of Kalymnos town. Money Penny was already in the bay on

Halki castle looking south-east towards Rhodes I wasn’t very good at history at school, maybe because the way it was taught didn’t interest me. Perhaps because he’s my namesake, I remember Richard I (the Lionheart). He was an English king and knight, and went off on a crusade with other English men to win back Jerusalem from Saladin and his Muslim hordes. Good English pilgrims would then once more be safe to travel to the Holy Land. I even constructed and painted an Airfix-li

Missy Bear leaving Tilos In my last blog, we left you as we were driving northwards across the Alps northwards, leaving Italy. This was the opposite of Hannibal, who entered Italy with his elephants 2,200 years ago, heading southwards towards his Roman enemy, during the second Punic war.  His thirty plus elephants were probably small North-African species, and he is thought to have used trainers (mahouts) from the Indian sub-continent to keep the beast under control. Hannibal

Our return to Greece was a bit reminiscent of “Trains, Planes and Automobiles”, except for us it was “Automobiles, Planes and Ferries”. Our taxi turned up at 04:15 to whisk us off to Bristol Airport, which we rather naively assumed would be quiet. It was absolutely heaving, full of stag and hen parties. We were desperate for coffee, and had to manoeuvre our way through the, “ I’m on holiday, therefore I’m having a pint ” brigade. We stood open-mouthed at a hen party, where th

We don’t know the Italian mainland that well. We had done a few fly-in, city-breaks in the distant past (Rome, Florence, Naples, Verona, Bologna, Lake Maggiore) but never been to the boot-shaped peninsular for a week’s holiday, to soak up the atmosphere and culture. Jonny couldn’t believe we had stayed so few days in Italy on our way out to the boat. So, we decided not to head home via the Balkans and eastern Europe, but to pass again through Italy. Apart from that, we had no

Missy Bear is now laid up in Lakki for the summer, and her crew has arrived back in Italy, via two car-ferries. Ancona was full up when we docked, due to a music festival. So, we drove west into the foothills of the Apennines, and found a farmhouse with modern rooms, near the little hilltop town of Santa Maria Nuova. Our charming host – the farmer’s wife - spoke no English, and we speak no Italian. I conversed a bit in French, otherwise we used our iPhones to translate. It wa

Dirsek

Fethiye Fish Market - almost empty at lunch time If you went to a supermarket in Turkey in 2014, you might have paid 10 Turkish Lira (TRY) for a decent bottle of white wine. That was the equivalent of €3.50, for a European tourist. Just over 10 years later, that same bottle of wine would cost you 600 TRY, or about €13.50. For a European tourist, that is inflation of about 4-times over that period. Which is bad enough, but pity the poor local Turkish wine-lover, who now has to

We’ve seen how tectonic activity around this part of Anatolia has razed entire ancient towns to rubble, and sunk ancient ports into the sea. Another geographic feature, that often leads to topographical change - dramatically affecting humans and other life - is the rivers, along with associated spits and estuaries. We can all probably think of numerous examples of towns in England or France named “ Some-place-on-Sea ”, or “ Quelque-chose-sur-Mer ”, that are now miles-inland f

I was a little sad to leave the ‘Yacht Classic’ hotel pontoon in Fethiye, but we were soon sailing across to the other side of the large bay, to the Gocek side, and to our overnight anchorage in the marine park. Our home for a few days R&R We decided to swing on the hook in Round Bay, one of the few places in the entire Bay of Gocek that is shallow enough to allow you to anchor without taking a line ashore. We had been here on a day sail with Richard’s sister, Rachael, and he

With Tony and Lynn on board, and victualled-up, we continued eastwards for our next adventure. Over the Turkish mainland, and to our right on Rhodes, we could see cumulus clouds building into tall, fluffy towers. We kept any eye on these in case they flattened-out into the tell-tale, anvil shape, a sure-sign of a potential thunderstorm. Fortunately, they all collapsed before the anvil formed. Our first anchorage We agreed we would push on further east, and finally anchored-up

In his book, ‘ A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages’, Anthony Bale describes the trials and tribulations of pilgrims heading from northern Europe, including Britain, to the Holy Lands. It does cover, albeit rather briefly, the rather challenging and grubby conditions onboard ship, ‘sailing’ from ports such as Genoa, Venice, Rome, and even Constantinople. Bad food, dirty water, seasickness, smelly neighbours, and piracy were just some of the downsides. This got me thinking about

We had been away from England now for seven weeks, and I was starting to looked a bit like a raggedy, wind-swept sailor. My longer, shaggy hair always shows up greyer, like my un-shaved chin. That was the first thing Mum said to me, on the last FaceTime call. “You’re going grey!” So, to the Berber in the Fish Market, I must go, on Monday! And seeing as there is also a Hammam along the covered street, I decided to treat myself to a Turkish bath, and a full body massage as well

South Western Anatolia Missy Bear's journey (so far) this season We have now spent a month sailing east and now westwards along this south-western corner of Asia Minor. Anatolia is a very rugged place, with the mountains of the western Taurus Mountains still snow-capped in May, and rising up almost at the shore line, as the African tectonic plate pushes northwards into its Eurasian neighbour. Snow covered peaks of the Western Taurus range There are several broad and flat vall

By Wednesday (30 April), we were on Mehmet’s restaurant pontoon in Ciftlik, just south-west of the bay of Marmaris. Our weather app, Windy, said today was the start of the great rains round 14:00. Apparently, it had been exceedingly wet there the previous week as well. With only two hours required to get to our marina, we had a lazy start, casting off just before 10:00.  Marmaris Bay felt a bit like entering Chichester harbour. You feel like you’ve entered, but actually you h